Founded on June 19th, 1957 at the suggestion of Dr. J. B. Rhine, Director of the Duke Laboratory, its aim was to promote better communication between scientists working in the field, advance parapsychology as a science, disseminate knowledge of the field, and integrate the findings of parapsychology with those of other branches of science. Thus the PA holds an annual scientific convention, maintains a website that provides balanced information about research, produces a member magazine (Mindfield) and is associated with the Journal of Parapsychology to encourage new scholarly work. The PA membership includes most of the active parapsychologists in the world, but currently has just 123 professional members and 79 associates, reflecting the modest size of the community. Nevertheless, the PA has been recognised as a rigorous scientific body, being an affiliated organisation of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) since 1969.
The Parapsychological Association (PA) is the international professional body for the scientific and scholarly study of ‘psi’ (or ‘psychic’) experiences, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, remote viewing, psychokinesis, psychic healing, and precognition.